The American Lady (The Glassblower Trilogy Book 2)

by Petra Durst-Benning

  Wanda had recently read a novel about the American Civil War, in which the heroine meets her father again after having believed him dead for years. The author had described the moment by saying she “felt as though she were looking at her own reflection.” Wanda waited in vain for any such feeling; try as she might, though, she detected no familiar features in Thomas Heimer’s face.

  Was this even the right man, standing before her? Or was this his brother Michel? She peered unobtrusively downward. This man had both of his legs, so . . . She had to fight back a nervous giggle when she realized how ridiculous the situation was.

  “Why is your hair like that? Did you have lice, or what?”

  Thomas Heimer jerked a hand toward Wanda’s short hair. Then he turned and shuffled back into the house, leaving the door open as if to say, Come in or stay outside, it’s all the same to me.

  In a daze, Wanda followed him along a dark hallway, up some stairs, and into the kitchen. So this was the house where she had spent the first year of her life—the thought meant nothing to her. She cleared her throat to get rid of the feeling that her vocal chords were furring over.

  “Thought you were never coming. You were ill, though.” Thomas Heimer sat down on the corner bench without offering her a place. Then he reached over to the stove where a pot was clattering its lid and pushed it aside.

  “Eva!” he shouted, then said to Wanda in a normal voice, “What do you want?”

  Wanda blinked. The air in the room was very stuffy, and there was an odd smell. She glanced over at the window involuntarily and saw that it was blocked by great drifts of snow that made it impossible to let in any fresh air.

  “What do I want? I wanted to see you. Visit you, that is,” she said in a little-girl voice. She scolded herself the next moment for using that tone—she sounded like a baby, not like a grown woman in search of her roots. Without thinking about it, she sat down opposite him.

  “You seem to know all about me,” she said in response to his last comment. “Yes, I was ill for a few weeks; otherwise I would have come earlier.” Even as she spoke, she was thinking desperately about what she could say next. All of a sudden things were very different from any of the scenarios she’d imagined. She certainly wasn’t going to blurt out that she’d only recently learned he was her father. She felt no desire at all to bare her soul to this man, with his chapped lips and rough manners. What she really wanted to do was get up and leave.

  She had nothing to say to him, and he had nothing to say to her.

  Coming here had been a hideous mistake—nothing more than that. Yet another of her silly ideas.

  Just like the thought that she might be of some use to Johanna and her family—laughable!

  “I know it doesn’t matter to you whether you see me or not. There’s no reason you should want to, so let’s not bother pretending. Let’s just keep it short.” She got up. “Here are a few things I brought. Christmas presents. There’s something there for the others too.”

  The presents, all neatly done up in shiny wrapping paper, looked out of place on the shabby wooden table. Another mistake, Wanda thought with a sinking feeling. Her fingers were gripping the edge of the table so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.

  Heimer was still sitting hunched over on the bench. Though his face was expressionless, he had a nervous air about him.

  He looks like a stray dog, Wanda thought. He looks like nobody’s taken care of him for so long that he’s forgotten even the simplest rules for how to behave around people.

  Her father.

  A stranger. A man for whom she felt nothing, except a twinge of pity.

  All at once her heart was almost bursting with love for the man who had taken Thomas Heimer’s place eighteen years ago. She saw her stepfather vividly in her mind’s eye—Steven in his elegant suits, Steven sitting at the wheel of his beloved new car, Steven surrounded by his business friends and rivals. Wanda’s cheeks flushed with shame. Steven had always been there for her, had always forgiven her silly mistakes. How ungrateful she had been! Ever since she had found out when and where she was born, she had treated him like dirt, ignored his feelings . . . yes, almost laughed at him for feeling hurt—as though she were asking, What right do you have to expect me to love you?

  There were loud steps on the stairs. Whoever was coming was panting and short of breath. Wanda suddenly found the thought of meeting another member of this family almost unbearable.

  “I don’t want to impose any longer. You must have plenty to do in the workshop . . .” She didn’t wait for Heimer to reply but turned to go. Too late. A shadowy figure appeared in the hallway and a harsh female voice spoke up.

  “Wilhelm’s being quite impossible today, again! I’ve only got one pair of hands. I can’t spend all my time at his beck and call! Michel’s called for me three times already this morning as it is . . .”

  Eva stopped in the doorway, rooted to the spot. Her eyes darted from Thomas to Wanda and back again.

  “I thought I heard something!” She folded her arms in front of her, came closer, and looked at Wanda with a beady eye. “Well look at this, it’s the American girl . . .”

  “Hello, Eva.” Wanda managed a thin smile despite the unfriendly stare. She wasn’t going to let this haggard old woman get the best of her. Eva was as old as her mother but seemed worlds away from the provocative temptress in Ruth’s tales. And what was she cooking in that pot?

  Eva went to the stove and took the lid off. A cloud of steam shot up, accompanied by an odd smell. She took out something small and bony that Wanda could have sworn was a squirrel.

  “I’ll see myself out,” Wanda gasped out as she tried not to breathe through her nose.

  “Oh no you won’t!” Thomas Heimer sat up straight. “You’ll drink a cup of coffee with us now that you’re here. Otherwise people will say we never offer our guests anything! Eva, put the kettle on. And bring some bread and something to go with it.”

  Now that she’d lost her chance to beat a hasty retreat, Wanda had no choice but to sit back down at the table with her father. Eva glowered as she thumped cups and plates down on the table, and Wanda tried to make conversation.

  She mentioned how excited she was about all the snow. Was it going to stay like this all the way through till spring, she asked, although she knew the answer already.

  Thomas Heimer asked how her journey had been and what she thought of Lauscha, then listened to Wanda’s answers without any real interest while he drank his coffee. He seemed determined for her to notice how little he cared.

  “Johannes took me to meet a few glassblowers so that I could see for myself how many different wares are made in Lauscha.” She laughed, embarrassed. “To tell the truth I liked the marbles best of all. So many colors in one tiny piece of glass!”

  “Old Marbles Moritz knows his work,” was all Heimer said.

  “And what’s going on in your workshop?” Wanda asked. As she spoke she realized that the question really mattered to her. Perhaps if Thomas Heimer started to talk about his work, he might prove to be a little more like the man she had imagined he would be. So far the man sitting across the table had shown no signs of being the talented glassblower Marie had described with such admiration. Nor did he seem at all like the charming rogue her mother had talked about. Instead Thomas Heimer seemed fragile.

  “Next to nothing, if you really want to know,” Eva said, joining in the conversation for the first time. “We’re just about keeping the wolf from the door, but not for much longer! If you and your mother think you can get your hands on anything worth having, she was wrong to send you here. She . . .”

  “Eva, shut yer mouth! That’s not why Wanda came,” Heimer snapped at her.

  Aha, what was going on here? Wanda looked at Heimer, and just for a moment their eyes met.

  “You’ll have heard by now that Michel’s not much use any
longer,” Heimer said, nodding vaguely toward the hallway. “He has to lie down most of the time. Has what they call phantom pain. And Father hasn’t left his bed for weeks now. Back in summer he still insisted on spending an hour or two in the workshop every day.”

  Was she expected to reply? Wanda decided the best thing to do was lend an open ear. She had just drunk the last sip of coffee when Eva snatched her cup away from her.

  “Don’t you pretend you miss having Wilhelm there while you work,” she spat over her shoulder from where she stood at the sink. “We haven’t had any decent orders for three months—that’s the trouble!”

  “But how can that be? The Heimer workshop was always famous for its wares, wasn’t it? Marie told me that you’re one of the best in the whole village.” Wanda saw Thomas Heimer’s eyes light up briefly. Maybe she had improved his day a little with her visit after all.

  A moment later, though, Heimer’s eyes clouded over with sadness again. “What’s the use now that nobody wants glass anymore? There are porcelain works springing up everywhere like mushrooms after rain—and they make vases and bowls and knickknacks so cheaply there’s no way we can compete.”

  Other glassblowers seem to be able to, Wanda found herself thinking. She said aloud, “That’s mass-production, though—handmade goods are always worth more, aren’t they?”

  Heimer shrugged. “You tell that to the buyers from the big department stores in Hamburg or Berlin. Customers there just want things cheap—they don’t care what it looks like or if it’s well-made.”

  “But you could . . . educate the customers’ tastes.” Wanda remembered when she had worked at Dittmer’s. None of the customers there had ever complained about the high prices, but they certainly kicked up a fuss if they thought that the quality wasn’t up to snuff!

  “High-quality glass will always find a buyer. Maybe not in the department stores but in a gallery instead.” Wanda wondered whether she should mention the exhibition of Venetian glass in New York. When she had visited again on the last day of the show, there had been a “sold” sticker on almost every piece.

  Heimer shook his head. “I used to think so too. But you can’t hold back time. Perhaps . . . if it had all happened differently . . . Three of us together might have been able to tackle the new fashions . . .” He weighed every word as he spoke, as though he had thought it all over a thousand times but never dared speak it aloud until now.

  “Oh, so now everything’s my fault, is it? Even though I’ve spent my whole life cooking and cleaning for you men?” Eva said. “Don’t you think that I wanted something else out of life too?” She slapped the damp dishcloth down into the sink and then ran out of the room without looking back.

  Wanda found she had been holding her breath. Now she let it out again. Were the two of them always like this?

  Thomas Heimer stared into the hallway.

  “We Heimers just don’t have any luck keeping our women happy,” he said. “We don’t have any luck. Not with anything.”

  Wanda was sorry for him, but she was horribly embarrassed as well. She stood up and pushed her chair back. “Now I really do have to go.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  As she went down the stairs, Eva blocked her way. “You don’t want to leave without seeing your uncle and your grandfather, do you now!” She grabbed Wanda’s hand and opened the door to a dim room with a bed standing in the middle.

  “There’s your Uncle Michel! He’s asleep now, but he was up half the night whimpering like a child. Just like he does every night. We can hear it all through the house.”

  Wanda stared at the thin bedcovers, aghast, and could make out the human form beneath them. What a terrible way to live! She felt Eva looking at her scornfully and turned away. Before she could do or say anything, Eva had opened the next door.

  “And here’s your grandfather! Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite. Actually, he’s in a good mood today. Not like usual.”

  “I . . . Wait a moment, Eva. I don’t think that I . . .” Wanda struggled in vain against the hand pushing her into the room. What did this woman think she was doing, shoving her about like this?

  “Eva? Who are you talking to there? I need my medicine! Eva! Come here!” It was a man’s voice, but high and reedy with age.

  “Visitor for you, Wilhelm!” And Eva gave Wanda one last push into the room. “You two make yourselves comfortable! I won’t intrude.”

  As Eva shut the door, she laughed as though at a particularly good joke.

  Wanda stared at the closed door, furious.

  “Ruth?” Wilhelm Heimer was sitting up in bed, blinking incredulously. “Have you . . . come back?”

  “I’m Wanda.” She went hesitantly toward the bed.

  So this was the fearsome Wilhelm Heimer. A shrunken old man, barely more than skin and bones, wrinkled and hunched.

  “Wanda?” His rheumy eyes blinked quickly over and over as though this would help him see her. “I don’t know anyone called . . .” The rest was lost in a fit of coughing. “Who are you? Get away from me! Why is Eva sending a strange woman in to see me? Eva! E-e-e-va!”

  “You can’t have forgotten about me, surely! I’m Ruth’s daughter!” Wanda snapped at him. “And don’t worry, I’m leaving anyway!” She turned abruptly for the door. Perhaps her grandfather no longer had all his wits about him, but he had to know that much, didn’t he? Now she was really getting fed up. Her mother had warned her in no uncertain terms but nothing could have prepared her for the truth of what a ghastly family the Heimers were. A pack of ill-mannered louts. No wonder her mother had run away from them!

  As she took hold of the doorknob, she heard the old man croak, “Ruth’s daughter . . . Now that would be . . . a surprise. You’re not lying to me, are you? Not you as well? Come over here, girl!”

  Wanda pursed her lips and turned around again. Be patient with him, she told herself sternly, he’s an old man on his deathbed.

  “Ruth!” A secretive smile spread across Wilhelm’s face.

  Wanda didn’t bother to repeat that she wasn’t Ruth. She approached reluctantly as he beckoned her toward the bed.

  On closer inspection the old fellow didn’t look quite so deathly ill after all. For a moment she even thought she could see the stubborn lines of earlier days in his face; in the jutting chin and sharp cheekbones, she could see the fearsome old bully everyone had told her about. To her own amazement she even felt something like relief.

  “Ruth’s daughter, now who would have thought! Your mother . . .” He sat up straight. “Shall I tell you something about your mother?”

  Wanda nodded—and was immediately angry at herself.

  The old man’s eyes lit up.

  “Don’t go telling anyone else, mind!”

  He began to chuckle like a bleating goat, then relapsed into another coughing fit.

  Wanda waited for him to recover.

  “Ruth . . . back then, she had more moxie than all three of my sons put together.” He shook his head sadly. “It was a long time ago. And nothing ever got better after that.”

  Wilhelm Heimer closed his eyes.

  As she took hold of the doorknob again, Wanda fought against the lump in her throat. She knew that she had just heard the old man give the greatest compliment he was capable of.

  “It’s good that you came.” The whisper from the bed was faint, but loud enough to hear even as she left.

  12

  The meal was everything that the occasion demanded: pâté with truffles, grilled red mullet that filled half the palazzo with the scent of rosemary, squab stuffed with porcini and saffron risotto. The table in the dining room was decorated as befitted the feast. The linen tablecloths were embroidered with the family coat of arms, the best china was brought out, and the silver was polished to a high shine. A bouquet of white lilies and yellow roses stood in the middle of the table, with
two more at each end of the long main window. Despite the magnificence of the blooms, however, the overall effect was sterile, an impression that was only heightened by the fact that the flowers gave off no scent. Perhaps they were silk? Marie took a petal between her fingers when no one was looking: the flowers were real. She wondered if perhaps Patrizia had forbidden the flowers to spread any scent so that nothing could compete with her own strong perfume.

  Marie waited impatiently for even a glimmer of holiday spirit. How long did she have to sit in this high-ceilinged room where every word echoed back from the walls, looking at the sour expression on her mother-in-law’s face, while Franco and his father talked on and on about some winegrower and his sons? Marie tried to catch Franco’s eye, but he was so absorbed in conversation that he didn’t notice.

  By the time the third course was served, Marie was full, but she began working her way through everything on the plate because it was unladylike enough to annoy Patrizia. And indeed the countess raised her eyebrows disapprovingly as she cut her own serving of pigeon breast into tiny little bites. A moment later she put her cutlery down.

  “It will be eleven o’clock soon. I will go and make sure that Carla has cooled the champagne.” Patrizia dabbed delicately at an imaginary drop of wine on her lips and then moved her chair back silently and stood up.

  She was hardly out of the room before Marie surreptitiously unbuttoned the waistband of her skirt. She was sorry now that she had eaten so much.

  For Franco’s sake she wasn’t wearing pants while she was pregnant. “It doesn’t do the bambino any good to be buttoned up so tight,” he had argued. Marie was fairly sure, though, that he was more worried about Patrizia’s old-fashioned views. The countess had already declared that she was deeply shocked Marie did not wear a corset. Well, her dear mother-in-law would have to get used to the idea that Marie was not going to tie herself into a prickly wire cage, not even after she had given birth!